In The Midst of the Ruins
by Idday
Summary: The raven comes to Jon on the Wall one day, one day when it is all over and he has stopped counting days. The raven comes to Sansa on a day that she almost gives up on. Jon and Sansa after the war, rebuilding Winterfell and each other.


**Phew. This one is a doozy. I actually started writing it when inspiration struck, hard... but I was only about halfway through the second book in the series. So I wrote what I could and kept adding more details as I got farther along in the series. I just finished the fifth book and am FINALLY finished editing, at least as much as I can be... this makes about twenty times reading it through, but of course, I'm sure there are still mistakes hidden away somewhere.**

**So the usual: I do not own anything related to A Song of Ice and Fire or the TV show Game of Thrones and am in no way trying to make a profit.**

**Mostly from the books, though a few details from the series may have slipped through, since I've seen those, too.**

**This takes place after the conclusion of everything, theoretically, so obviously AU already, and nothing beyond A Dance with Dragons has even come out yet. Sigh.**

**T for super mild sexual references/actions, very vague references to sexual assault. Nothing worse than the books OR the show.**

**As always, please let me know what you think!**

* * *

It is as black as the snow is white, and Jon is afraid.

_Dark wings, dark words._

The ravens do not bring him much good news.

The note contains only two words. The parchment is not tearstained, the words are not written in blood. His name is not on it, and neither is hers. If this was one of her songs, the parchment would be faded from her hands, the ink would have run with her tears. He would be able to smell her scent clinging to the note, and the words would be sweet and desperate. _Please,_ they would say, _I need you. _She would have signed her name in elegant script.

This is not one of her songs.

The parchment is new and creamy, the words crisp and bold. There is no signature on the bottom of the note.

_Come home, _it reads.

And that is all.

And that is enough.

Jon knows who it is from; how could he not?

He feels something, sickly sweet and so, so foreign growing inside him, and he is worried for it.

It is hope.

And his heart, his witch-touched, newly mended heart, gives a terrible thump.

He is alone atop the wall, and he feels as though he could shout, but when he says her name, it is too quietly for even Ghost to hear.

"Sansa," he whispers.

…

The raven comes to Sansa on a day that she almost gives up on. It soars over the ruins of Winterfell, an ink blot against the winter-grey sky.

If this was one of her stories, the note would come with a flower, with gushing words of love. It would come with a knight on a horse, and she would let him wear her favors.

This is not one of her stories.

It comes alone, tied in black.

There is no name, and but one word.

_Yes._

She blinks back tears she did not know she still could cry, and reaches down to pet a direwolf that has not been by her side in years.

"When will he come, Lady?" She whispers to its ghost.

…

When he comes, he does come on a horse, but he does not have fine, shining armor. He is dressed in black, and trailed by a massive white wolf. Winterfell seems deserted, and for a moment, he is scared. Then he sees a figure shuffling towards him, outfitted in the chains of a Maester.

"Lord Commander," the figure wheezes.

"No," Jon says, "Not anymore."

The Maester gives him a little bow, and beckons him to follow.

Jon gives his horse to a stable boy and threads his fingers through Ghost's shaggy coat for reassurance. Ghost nudges him with a cold wet nose, encouraging.

He enters the Great Hall, newly rebuilt.

She is seated on a great throne at the far end with a crown atop her head, and for a moment, through the haze of time and memory, she looks so much like Robb that his throat tightens.

_Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa,_ he had said once, making one of the hardest decisions of his life. He has thought about it, since, wondered if he had made the right decision. He still aches for it all with a startling fierceness: for Winterfell, for a home, for a wife to love and children to hold.

Seeing Sansa now quells every doubt he had ever had. He was right. Winterfell does belong to Sansa, just as she belongs to it.

She stands when he enters, and he pauses, overwhelmed and unsure. The Queen in the North._ His _Queen in the North. Does he kneel? Can he rush to her, take her in his arms?

He has not seen her in years, and they never were particularly close, yet here she is, whole and alive, a tangible piece of all that he has lost, and there could be no sight sweeter to him.

She steps towards him slowly, dressed in northern furs and a gleaming crown, iron and bronze, standing tall and stepping sedately, every inch the lady she always was.

Every inch a queen.

Her footsteps quicken as she draws near him, down the long hall, faster and faster until she is fairly running towards him. Her hands unclasp themselves and open to him, standing still frozen, unsure.

Ghost steps towards her, but she does not falter, does not even glance his way.

Her eyes are fixed on Jon.

Now she is in front of him, so close, and she suddenly stops, unmoving, and gazes at him.

Her eyes are piercing.

Ghost whines again and Jon realizes that he is standing in front of his queen, his family, and he starts to bend a knee, when she speaks.

"Brother."

It is the first time she ever has called him this, not half-brother, not Snow, but _brother_, and yet before he can stop himself, he corrects her.

"Cousin."

"Jon," she says on a whisper, and he cannot deny the truth in this.

"Sansa," he says in the same tone, a frantic, unbelieving whisper, "My queen."

He longs to embrace her, to hold her, but he remembers the way she stopped short of touching him, sees her broken eyes and he pulls his arms back before they can reach her, shelter her.

Ghost steps forward once more, sniffing at Sansa's hands, clasped again modestly in front of her. He does not look at Jon as he normally does for instructions. He nudges her hands with his cold nose, and then walks around her, rubbing his body along the back of her legs until he comes to stand close against her right side, as he usually does to Jon. He pants up at her adoringly.

Ghost has never loved anybody like this, nobody but Jon.

Jon thinks the wolf can smell the winter in her bones, can sense a fellow direwolf.

Sansa reaches a hand out, fearlessly, eyes still locked on Jon's. She rests her slender hand right behind the huge wolf's head, burrows her hand into his fur. She strokes him, and Ghost closes his eyes in contentment.

"Welcome home," she says to them both.

…

Sansa leads him to his room herself, Ghost padding along at her side, Jon walking three steps behind, as befits a queen.

_I do not need another servant,_ she thinks, _I need a brother._

She had called him brother, in the Great Hall, and he had corrected her. "Cousin," he had said. She closes her eyes, comfortable with the passages of her home, sight unnecessary to her. She had so needed to have one brother left.

Ghost licks her hand, and she opens her eyes. She remembers Jon so well. She remembers his good-natured spars with Robb, his closeness with Arya. She remembers him playing with Bran and Rickon.

He had never wanted much to do with her, but she also remembers the way she used to correct him. "Half-brother," she would say, trying so hard to be a lady, to be her mother. Trying so hard to be good and right and loved.

She is terrified he remembers her, too, remembers her as a silly, weak, little girl, remembers her as the least loved of her siblings.

There is a familiar pang deep in her chest as she remembers her siblings, and the chant starts up again, always there, always.

It started on the Kingsroad, those first days from home, when she was desperately lonely and trying so hard, so hard to be perfect for her future husband, for the gleaming, glittering queen that she hoped so much to be like, then before she really knew either of them.

_Mother, _she had said in her head, sounding sad and terrified to herself, wetting Lady's fur with tears as she lay in her dark tent, sleep far away. _Robb, Bran, Rickon._

It helped, a little. To think of her family, to imagine them whole again when she was so far from Winterfell, from all she had ever known. She didn't bother to add Father, or Arya, not when she saw them every day, not when she could hear Arya snoring, fearless and unafraid of leaving home. Strong Arya. Brave Arya.

When the day came she cannot bear to think of, not even now, when she let her tears fall into her pillow because she had no direwolf, she added a new name to her list, the pain cutting fresh everytime she thought it, somehow soothing even in its awfulness.

_Mother. Robb. Bran. Rickon. Lady. Lady. Lady._

Sansa had so many horrible days then, afraid and almost alone. Arya took her dancing lessons and ignored Sansa as always, her father trying so hard, though Sansa swore she would never forgive him.

_Lady, Lady, Lady._

She forgave him, of course she did. Her loving, noble father, honorable to a fault, how could she not? And she begged for him, so prettily, so valiantly. She thought she could save him, foolish girl. And her sister, her dear, horrible, beautiful sister disappeared without a trace, and she had two names to add that night, and she was truly, horribly alone.

_Mother. Father. Robb. Arya. Bran. Rickon. Lady._

She talked to herself then, to feel less alone, and felt ridiculous for it, so she talked to her wolf, her sweet, obedient Lady, her only friend in the world. It was easier to imagine her really there than a person, and yet it was not right, to have Lady so close during the day and add her to her prayers at night, her prayers for those far away.

Sansa thought of six that night.

_Mother. Father. Robb. Arya. Bran. Rickon._

Miraculously, impossibly, Sansa stayed alive, and she thought of her family every night, repeatedly, methodically, until she could hear their names always, steady, like the beating of her heart, even in the daytime, even as she simpered and lied and survived.

_Mother, give me love,_ she thought, as her back and legs throbbed and her mouth bled and her eyes remained dry. No tears, she had no tears left. _Father, give me honor. Robb, give me strength. Arya, give me spirit. Bran, give me wisdom. Rickon, give me will._

Sansa stayed alive.

Sansa thought of six.

And yet Sansa Stark was a girl named under her mother's seven Gods, living under a King of Seven Kingdoms. Seven was in her bones, her heart, her faith.

Sansa needed seven.

_Mother. Father. Robb. Arya. Bran. Rickon. _She thought one night, as she had so many others. _Jon._ She added cautiously, and it made her feel better. It fit. He fit.

_Mother, give me love. Father, give me honor. Robb, give me strength. Arya, give me spirit. Bran, give me wisdom. Rickon, give me will. Jon, give me courage._

Sansa Stark died.

Alayne Stone left King's Landing.

Alayne Stone was a practical girl, she discovered. Much more so than Sansa Stark ever was. How can dead men help a girl? All those years she spent wishing for Robb to save her, for her father, all wasted time.

It was time to let the dead rest, to face that Arya and Bran and Rickon would never return to her.

_Mother. _Dead. _Father. _Dead. _Robb._ Dead. _Arya. _Dead. _Bran. _Dead. _Rickon._ Dead. _Jon._

Jon Snow survived. Her blessed bastard brother, alive.

Alayne crushed all hope behind a heavy mask of compliance, but Sansa stirred sometimes, as if in the deepest sleep, hoping, praying.

_Save me, Jon. Protect me, Jon._

_He cannot, _Alayne said fiercely, _for_ _he has taken the black. He is at the Wall. He will never come for you, not for a stupid, unworthy girl who let her family die._

_Jon, _Sansa thought desperately, _Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon, Jon, Jon. JonJonJonJonJonJonJon._

Some days, she thought he was the only thing keeping her alive.

_Jon, _her heart beat. _Jon,_ the wind whispered as she rode north to claim her home, leaving dead Petyr Baelish in the Vale with her dead Aunt Lysa.

She thinks Lord Baelish fell out of the moon door one day.

She tries not to think that she may have helped him through it. _An accident_, she tells herself on days when she hates herself too much to look in the mirror, crushing the voice inside that wants to add the word "not".

_Jon_, her feet said as they echoed on the stone floors of her ruined home her first time back, feeling so lonely, lonelier than she had since that awful night when she lost Lady.

_Jon,_ until she could no longer deny the savage aching within herself, the need to see him again, to make things right, to have a family again, the two of them, the last blooded Starks in the world.

_Jon,_ the raven's wings beat as it flew north towards the Wall.

_Jon,_ she nearly sobbed when he strode into the Great Hall, looking strong and healthy and so, so alive.

"Your chambers," she says out loud, sounding too loud, realizing she almost walked by them, lost in memories. Lost in Jon. _Which is ridiculous_, practical Alayne says in her head, _you don't have to imagine him anymore, he's here now. He came back for you._

…

Jon stares in dismay at the door she has lead him to, the door that leads to their father's chambers. _No,_ he reminds himself, _her father's chambers._

"Sansa, I cannot."

She turns to look at him with wounded, fragile eyes.

"Jon," she says. Just that. Just his name.

He longs to reach for her, to embrace her, to touch her. Comfort her.

He raises a hand.

Sansa flinches, starting back, fearful. Ghost pushes up against her, reassuring, and she leans back into him.

Jon lowers his hand and nods, accepting the rooms, hating himself.

"Sansa," he whispers as she opens the door for him.

She looks down at her clenched hands, avoiding his gaze, and walks away, sedately, Ghost looking piteously after her.

He looks back through years of pain, cold, betrayal. He looks back on his childhood and remembers his auburn-haired sister.

Sansa was the beautiful one, Jon reflects as he sinks down on the warm furs covering his bed, the ladylike one. The _good_ one.

Jon had never been close to her, not as close as he had been to the others. He had always been closest with Robb, or Arya, even Bran. Catelyn had preferred Robb, and he always thought that Arya had secretly been Ned's favorite child. And Sansa had had…

Sansa had had nobody. Excluded from her siblings by her lack of sisters (for Arya hardly counted, not in that regard), dearest to neither of her parents. Jon remembers friends of hers, simpering idiots crowded around their needlework, but they were not the true kinds of friends that the other Stark children found in each other.

Jon had been the outsider, the bastard, but he thought, looking back, that perhaps Sansa had always been terribly lonely.

Perhaps even as lonely as him.

…

Sansa does not eat in the Great Hall anymore. Her throne is there, a great, solid wooden one ("No metal," she had told the men frantically, when the rebuilding had barely begun and she had needed a throne, "I will never sit on a throne of iron. Never." It was the only time her façade had crumbled since setting foot back in Winterfell, the only time until this morning, when she had betrayed herself by running at Jon as if she were a child), and she can barely bring herself to linger in the Hall for her official duties as Queen in the North.

But she must, so she does.

Ghosts may roam the halls of Winterfell, but they gather in the Great Hall to dine, and Sansa will not give herself over to them, no matter how dead she feels inside.

Father, merely a head with dead eyes and a spike for a body. Mother, a smile on her throat as well as her face, her hair white and brittle. Robb's muscular, capable body, with a head that does not match.

Tyrion hadn't told her _how _her mother and brother had died, and now she thinks it was an attempt to protect her, and she is almost grateful for it, fruitless as it turned out to be, for the whispers swarmed the land anyway, and men are prone to talk, especially when they are in their cups. Especially when the only girl standing near is a bastard of no import. She found out eventually, she had to, of course she did. And the nightmares… well, they were not new. Only more vivid.

She does not see Arya or Bran or Rickon dining there, and it allows her to hope wildly, desperately, allows her to convince herself to ignore the shadow of Arya's form creeping around the castle at night, quiet as a cat, dagger in hand, allows her to tell herself that Bran's voice in the Godswood is her imagination, the wind in the trees, allows her to disregard Shaggydog's feral growls echoing from the woods, accompanied by the laughter of a little boy.

Sansa eats in her Solar, alone, Brienne standing protectively by, a hand always on the hilt of her sword, and a young boy from the village serving her.

She had meant to invite Jon for supper tonight, but after the way he had startled her in the hall, _reaching_ for her like that, with hands that appear so gentle, so loving, only to hold her down and beat her, violate her, hurt her… she thinks it is better that he stays away.

Sansa knows men, after all. She has learned from only the best.

But she still hears his name, steady as the beating of her own heart. _Jon. Jon. Jon._

There is a knock on her door, cautious and quiet.

Eldric, her serving boy, looks at her in alarm. Sansa never has visitors, and he is only eight years old. Visitors to Winterfell never bring fortune, not in his eyes.

She nods to him, hardly daring to hope.

_Probably state business,_ she tells herself, wanting to kill the voice in her head that desperately gasps _has he come for me? _Wanting to hold it down and suffocate it until she never hears it again, never hears herself depend on a man.

"Jon Snow," the Eldric announces in his childish voice, then blushes, and corrects himself, "That is, Targaryan. I mean, Lord. Prince. Prince Targaryan. Er…" Eldric trails off, unsure, and finally finishes, "The Lord Commander is here to see you, Your Grace."

Sansa takes pity on the poor boy. "Jon," she says, and then "You may show him in."

Jon enters, Ghost at his side, and she's so desperately glad that he came that she's ashamed of herself.

"I went to the Great Hall," he says, as Ghost rushes to her side, "but it was empty."

"I do not use the Great Hall," she says, too sharply. She feels herself color, and adds, more temperately, "only for official business. Please, sit."

She motions for Eldric to find him a chair, and the boy dutifully pulls one out for him, dragging it across the flagstones with a terrible scrape.

Jon gives Eldric a nod, settles into his chair. Ghost slinks under the table, curling up between them.

"Eldric, please see to it that Lord Targaryen has everything he desires to eat."

"Do not call me that," Jon says, pleadingly.

"Is it not true?" She asks. "After all, you are—"

"A bastard," he finishes, "still. If you must address me formally do so as you always have. But Sansa, I would so rather you called me Jon."

She feels Brienne tense behind her at the insolence of him addressing her so informally, and holds up a hand to placate her.

"It is alright, Brienne," she says, "After all, we were raised as siblings. There is no need for formalities here." She turns her gaze back to Jon. "I shall call you by your name," she reassures him. "And my subjects shall call you?"

"Snow," he says stubbornly.

"Lord Snow," she acquiesces, and he winces.

"Jon Snow," he says.

"Jon, if you are to be my Hand, they shall have to address you in a matter befitting your station. You are of noble birth, I shall not deny it."

He blinks at her as Eldric fills his wine cup, than rounds the table to refill Sansa's. She instinctively shys away from him, avoiding his touch, and she sees Jon's keen eyes take her in, all of it. She wishes she was as good at hiding from him as she is at hiding from everyone else.

"Your Hand?" He finally says.

"You know Winterfell as well as I. This is your home, too. I would have your help in ruling it."

"You do not need me, Sansa," he says. "The people adore their lovely Queen in the North. You are doing a fine job."

"And if I want your help?" She asks, deliberately allowing a trace of vulnerability into her eyes.

He looks at her for a moment, still seeing her too clearly. Then he nods. "Anything to be of service to you."

…

Jon stays through dinner and sits at her fireside after, not talking with her, just staring into the flames of her hearth. She has taken residence of her mother's old rooms, as befits her station, and though they are warmer than the rest of the castle, the North's chill cannot be disguised. Still she, like him, does not wear furs during the day, not as Brienne must.

The north is still in their bones like marrow, so deeply that King's Landing could not steal it from her, nor his true parentage from him.

He knows what the people say, but he is not a dragon.

He stays until her handmaiden arrives to brush her hair and dress her for bed, and then he bids her goodnight, lingering at the doorway to watch her hair gleam red hot in the flickering, dying firelight as her maid brushes it slowly, evenly.

He longs to take her hand, to bid her goodnight, but he knows better now than to try and touch her.

This new Sansa is a puzzle to him. Close though he had not been with her, he remembers her as an affectionate child with her true family, warm and loving, perhaps a bit naïve. Arya had always constantly complained about her giggling, her songs, her pathetic knights, but Jon realizes now that it was nothing that age and experience would not have cured her of, as it inevitably does.

Now her eyes are closed off to him, her face carefully blank, almost unreadable. _Almost._

Jon still knows her better than anybody else at Winterfell, and Jon still knows how to read people.

Now he sees a determinedness in her, a quiet power. Fear, when he tried to touch her, but strength.

But then, Sansa always had a quiet, steady sort of strength. The type of strength that is not seen in a land where strength is demonstrated by the sword and the lance. The type of strength that seems to pale in comparison to the aggressive, apparent strength of her brothers and sister. The type of strength that is strength, nonetheless.

After all, she had survived when all the others had not.

He thinks of the things that still must be done at Winterfell—rebuilding the rest of the castle, and the villages, providing for the people, replenishing the land.

So much less than Sansa had already done.

He resolves to help her fix it all, to mend her kingdom. He resolves to fix her.

Then he feels ashamed.

Sansa is not broken, just cautious, vulnerable. Careful.

He thinks of the way she flinched from him, shied away from her serving boy, the way he had seen her, watching out his window that afternoon, very intentionally not touch the stable boy's hand when he handed her the reins as she went off to visit the surrounding people.

Yet it is not touch she fears, of this he is certain. After all, she allows Ghost to touch her with no thought, and it is not even human touch, for she had allowed her maid to brush her hair, allowed Brienne to lay a protective hand on her back as she was guided through the castle.

It is the touch of man she fears.

Jon does not know which man made her so, frightened of him and all other men, but he resolves to hate him for it, to punish him for it.

He resolves to make Sansa trust him again.

…

Jon joins her at breakfast the next day, entering her solar as she stands looking out the window, over the courtyards of her castle, wondering, as she so often does, if she, a stupid, ignorant little girl (she knows she is, for they all have told her so), can even begin to fix all that has been broken.

She remembers crafting Winterfell while in the Vale, a rare moment of girlish fancy that she deeply regrets now, seeing all that followed. She wishes that she could rebuild with snow now, though, now that she knows how much more difficult it is to build with stone and mortar.

Bolton's men were thorough, she is forced to admit to herself through gritted teeth—they left hardly a room intact. Maybe it is terribly sentimental of her, or perhaps just easier, but she has not bothered to change anything about Winterfell in the rebuilding process; she merely builds new walls on top of the crumbling old ones, matching rooms exactly. Between her own vivid memories of the place and the memories of the servants who remain from before the disasters, she feels confident that she has succeeded in her goal, at least so far as she has yet built. After all, the North remembers.

Not that she has not had her fair share of problems along the way—even the simple task of choosing a bedchamber for herself presented issues she had not known existed. She had almost chosen her old childhood room, purely out of instinct, but she had realized that she was expected to take up the rooms of the Lady of Winterfell, uncomfortable as she initially found the concept to be. She has grown used to her solar now, just as she has grown used to her new role, and yet she still feels that she sleeps with ghosts some nights, not only her mother's spirit, but those of all her ancestors back to the laying of the foundation of Winterfell the first time. It makes her feel very small and very vulnerable, and not at all Queenly.

Jon comes and stands next to her, inches away, mirroring her stance, bringing his hands to rest on the windowsill like hers do.

She tenses, and hopes he doesn't notice, but she knows he does.

He does not touch her, but he is close, too close, inches away, not close enough. She can almost feel the heat from him, and it makes her both giddy and terrified.

She feels her cheeks flush and hates it, looks down at her hands, their hands. If she moved her left hand, just a bit, her pinky could brush his.

She almost does it.

But she remembers the touch of man. Faintly, there is a loving embrace from her father, a hair tousle from Robb, the feel of Rickon clinging to her leg. But stronger, more terrifying, more _real_ is the feel of calloused hands tearing at her clothes, touching her where she did not want for touch, pressing, hurting. Violating.

She takes him to the Great Hall instead, and he sits at her right hand, his wolf at her feet, as she hears grievances.

She takes him riding with her, out to the villages, as she has been doing almost every afternoon. Jon takes his longsword, and she convinces Brienne to stay behind. If the people are skeptical of him, unsure about him, they hide it out of respect for their lady queen.

She tries not to notice when he notices that she lets the village women and girls take her hands, kiss her palms, but she pulls away from even the smallest boy.

Jon shakes their hands, instead.

She wonders if the men notice how she avoids their touch, even as she pats the heads of their daughters and receives the attentions of their wives. If they do, they don't seem to care.

She follows him back to Winterfell, Ghost trotting at her side, though he could easily outpace both their horses should he wish to.

They hear a howl, long and keening, as they pass the wolfswoods. _Wolf_,Sansa thinks, but then Ghost takes notice, pausing, head cocked, ears pricked, looking intently with those red eyes into the woods.

Then he vanishes soundlessly.

"Ghost!" Jon calls after him, but he does not reappear. "He will come back," he tells Sansa, "Let's press onto Winterfell."

She nods and nudges her horse into moving.

"Was that a direwolf?" She asks when Winterfell appears before them.

"Must have been, for Ghost to have taken interest," Jon says unconcernedly as they ride into the stables, "We don't see many of them this far south, but there have been rumors of packs living in those woods, especially since winter."

He looks at Sansa as though he expects her to be afraid.

Direwolves do not scare their own kind.

Jon doesn't try to help her down from her horse. He just fetches a mounting block and puts it beneath her feet, watching her guardedly as she skillfully dismounts.

"You used to hate to ride," he says as he follows her out of the stables, falling back three steps.

"I used to be a different person," She says simply, unwilling to explain. With all the things she hates in the world now, riding has no place on that list. Besides, riding is necessary for a woman in her position, necessary to oversee her people. Riding brought her home, to Winterfell. "Jon, for all the Gods sakes, walk beside me."

"As you wish," he says, and hastens his pace until he is beside her again.

She feels her stomach tighten with hunger and eagerly awaits the meal laid out for her in her Solar.

"Shall I let you change for supper?" Jon asks lightly, already walking past her, towards his rooms.

"No," she says, "I have no reason to change."

He turns, already past her door. She senses his confusion. The old Sansa would have never decided not to change for dinner, especially if she was wearing her riding clothes.

Most days, she does not think she is anything like that girl from her childhood anymore. She almost tells him that.

"Supper is served," she says instead, and opens the door to her Solar.

…

Ghost does not return that night, and he is not at Jon's feet when he enters Sansa's solar the next morning. She's at her window again, statuesque in the morning sunlight, gazing out over her world.

Like yesterday, Jon approaches her, stands at her left. Like yesterday, he takes exquisite care not to touch her, but he stands just a tiny bit closer.

"What do you see?" He asks her softly, watching her watch her world, "When you look out?"

"What is left to be done," she replies immediately, "What will never be the same." Her gaze doesn't waver, but her expression softens slightly as she says, "And I can see the sky, too. Even in the midst of the ruin, I can see the sky, and there is something hopeful about that."

They are silent for a long moment."Where is Ghost?" She asks, still looking out her window.

"Out," Jon says vaguely, almost embarrassed that he does not know.

Sansa takes her right hand off the windowsill, drops it to her side. Her wrist is crooked up at an odd angle, almost as if it rests on something. Almost as if Ghost was under her hand. _Or Lady_.

He has spent almost all of his time since arriving back here at Sansa's side, yet he knows very little of her years between the last time they were both at Winterfell and now. He does not know what changed her, what turned her to steel. He does not know what made her wise and patient. He does not know why she will not touch a man. He does not know if she still grieves for her own direwolf, but he remembers the emptiness he had felt even last night when Ghost had not shared his solar, and thinks she must.

Sansa slides her left hand over, just an inch. For a moment, a breath, her pinky brushes up against his, lying alongside it. Then she turns away from the window, sits, breaks her bread.

It was almost too light and quick to notice. Almost as if he imagined it. But he knows he did not.

Sansa touched him.

…

It is hours before Ghost comes padding into the Great Hall, interrupting the Lord currently speaking to Sansa, stunning him into terrified silence.

The white direwolf pays him no notice, simply stalks to Sansa's side, circles her Throne and Jon's chair, and settles himself on the floor between them, resting his huge head on his front paws and closing his eyes.

"Pray continue, Lord Donne," Sansa says, unperturbed. She is secretly delighted for the interruption, for Lord Donne is droning on about something very dull that has to do with border disputes between two (very) minor estates.

She feels Jon shift beside her, irritated, though whether he thinks this claim is as mundane as she does or whether he's simply put off with Ghost for his antics, Sansa cannot tell.

"Yes, Lord Donne," he finally says, cutting the man off mid-grumble, "Your claim is surely legitimate, and though I cannot see why you have seen fit to bring us such an argument when you have already settled the dispute with your neighbor, I am sure Her Grace will see fit to send you home with a document clarifying her official stance on the matter."

Lord Donne turns to her, questioningly, and Sansa is ashamed, because she truly has no idea what they are talking about. She was distracted, thinking about this morning, before breakfast, when she had the audacity to touch Jon, reach out and brush his hand. Such a silly thing, really, two fingers touching for the briefest of moments, and yet it had felt so monumental, so daring. She had hardly been able to bring herself to do it, holding her breath, reaching down to Lady for reassurance. Her heart had beat so loudly for minutes, hours afterwards that she had been sure he would hear it. And nothing bad had happened. He had not grabbed her, held her down. He had not even moved.

She can still feel him on her finger, the outside of her left pinky feeling warmer than the rest of her hand, and she strokes that spot absentmindedly, hands clasped demurely on her lap.

Lord Donne is still looking at her, worry creeping into his expression the longer he stands awkwardly in silence.

"Yes, Lord Donne," She says hastily, "As Lord Snow says. Please see the Maester, and he will see to it that you have what you need."

Sansa assumes that he must have bowed to her, he must have left the Great Hall, but she doesn't remember him doing it, afterwards. She strokes her left pinky again.

"Sansa?" Jon says, his tone worried. He's looking at her with an expression of tender concern, and it sets her heart beating too fast again.

"Just… thinking." She says vaguely, biting back the urge to add _Sorry._ She vowed long ago to never apologize to another man.

He nods, as if her paying not the slightest bit of attention to her duties is perfectly acceptable, and she flushes again, fighting a familiar feeling of worthlessness.

_I cannot do this,_ she thinks miserably. _They were right. I'm not good enough for it._

Jon is asking her a question, but she cannot be sure what it is. Perhaps something about riding out again. The Great Hall is empty now, and quiet: except for the sounds of Ghost breathing steadily at their feet, her few courtiers all having dispersed to take a meal. She had not realized how late in the morning it was.

"No," She says to whatever the question was, "Not today. I have other duties to attend to."

…

Jon takes his midday meal alone in his Solar. He has not spent much time here, apart from sleeping—it still feels _wrong_ somehow to reside in the chambers of their father.

_No,_ he reminds himself, as he so often must, _her father._

He leaves his windows open—it is no longer the dead of winter, and though he thought he never would at the time, he sometimes misses the cold of the Wall, of the deep North. It was a cleansing kind of cold.

The sounds of Winterfell are familiar to him, though there are far less people here now than there were in his boyhood. He hears the jangle of metal as a sword-bearer crosses the yard, the clip of horse hooves, the steady thwack of arrows finding their target.

For a moment, he can imagine they are Robb's arrows, or Arya's, can imagine the scowl on Bran's face when his sister shows him up.

He finishes a cup of wine and leaves the chalice on the table, rises to his window. Perhaps there are still young boys here who practice the art of war, boys like Sansa's young cupbearer. But it is not a boy who pulles back the bow, steadily, who looses an arrow and watches it find its target.

It is Sansa.

Jon blinks hard, as if to change the picture in front of him, for Sansa and archery are as contrary as, well, Arya and needlework.

But there she is, pulling another arrow from a quiver, and shooting it with, if not practiced ease, then an undeniable familiarity, as if shooting arrows is something Sansa does all the time.

Her target is littered with arrows, and though none have buried themselves dead center, Sansa's shooting is clearly effective.

Jon pulls himself from the window and whistles for Ghost to heel, making his way into the courtyard.

_I have other duties to attend to,_ she had said when he had asked her if she had intended to ride out of Winterfell again.

He had not thought _archery_ would be among those duties.

He holds Ghost back when they reach the courtyard, but his eyes still have not deceived him, that is still Sansa, lithe body flexing as she smoothly notches and releases an arrow.

Jon swallows, and tries not to think of her body.

She is wearing the same determined expression that she used to when working on a particularly difficult piece of embroidery, and when Brienne, standing behind her, hand on hilt, calls, "Well done, Your Grace," Sansa wears the same expression of polite pride that she used to when the Septa praised her.

Perhaps, he thinks, as he had when she had been so particular about honoring his noble birth with that damned title, his Sansa still lives beneath the mask of this porcelain princess.

"Thank you, Brienne," Sansa calls back, then turns and looks him dead in the eyes, "And what think you, Jon?"

Of course she had known he was watching.

He steps into the sunlight, letting Ghost approach her for a scratch. "Your skill is admirable," he says, and the part of him that is still her teasing older brother adds, "Though you might have more luck if you used the proper grip."

She freezes, for a moment, and Brienne says disapprovingly, "Lord Snow!" But then Sansa smiles, eyes teasing.

"Am I not, my Lord?" She says, as though she is the courtier and he the king, "But I was so sure that this was the same grip _you_ used when shooting. Perhaps that is why Robb always bested you?"

For a moment, he is stunned by her causal mention of their brother. _Her _brother.

"Had I known you were watching," he says, composing himself, "I would have tried to set you a better example."

She smirks, and raises her bow again. "Does my grip meet with your approval, Lord Snow?" She calls, mockingly.

"Spread apart your fingers, Your Grace," he says, playing along, "relax them a bit. No tension, only stability."

She rolls her eyes, but adjusts her grip slightly. Her arrow does not find center, but it buries itself marginally closer than her others.

"That is enough, I think," she says, handing her bow and arrows to her small serving boy, who seems to have appeared from thin air, "Jon will walk me to the Godswood, Brienne. You may leave us."

Brienne looks at him suspiciously, but makes a little bow to Sansa and stalks off anyway.

Jon almost takes her arm, but he merely motions to Ghost, instead. Thrilled as he is that Sansa had allowed herself to touch him this morning, he dares not attempt to return her caress. _Let her come to you,_ he councils himself, _do not frighten her off._

"Do you still go to the Godswood often?" He asks her, "To pray?" He knows she was named under the Seven Gods, but she, like all her siblings, had often visited their father's Godswoods, as often as they had visited their mother's sept.

He'll be amazed if she says yes. He doesn't think he _can_ pray anymore.

"Not to pray," she says softly, "Just… to listen."

He wonders if she listens for Bran there, but he doesn't ask. "Who taught you to shoot?" He asks instead.

She smiles, a half smile that tells him nothing. "A lady has her secrets, Jon," she says mysteriously.

"I was surprised that you would practice such a thing," he confesses.

"What, silly, stupid Sansa, who never had a care for anything real?" She says, suddenly angry.

"No," he retorts, "gentle, ladylike Sansa who never cared for war and disparaged of Arya's interest in it. I never thought you were silly," He adds, not adding a silent _much_ that Arya seems to drop into his head, "And you have certainly never been stupid."

_After all,_ he thinks, _You survived in the very den of the lions, all those years. That takes brains, and courage._

They walk in silence, and Jon wants to say something to placate her, but cannot possibly think what.

"A leader should be able to defend her home, should she not?" Sansa says after a moment, almost too quietly for Jon to hear clearly.

_I will defend your home! _He wants to shout, _Sansa, I will defend you. You do not have to be afraid anymore!_

"An admirable goal," he says instead.

"It makes me feel strong," Sansa says after a moment, as though she is embarrassed by it, "It makes me feel like people cannot hurt me."

"I would not let them," Jon vows, unable to keep silent this time.

She stops walking, turns, blinks up at him. He has brought his hand to his sword without realizing, and he drops it now. Ghost snakes around her ankles, pressing into her, as if he, too, is vowing to protect her.

"I cannot depend on you always, Jon," She says, not unkindly, "I cannot depend on anyone. I know that now."

"You _can_ depend on me," he says vehemently, "For as long as you wish."

She gives that cryptic little half smile again, and then steels herself. She reaches up, slowly, as though it is he who would shy away from her touch, as if he is not desperate for it. She brushes his arm with one finger, gently, slowly, softly enough to only be the whisper of the wind.

…

The days come and go, long and similar. They all feel the same to Sansa—waking up with a start in her furs, early, sweating and afraid, reaching for the comforting bulk of a wolf who has not been there in years. She signs papers and writes letters while the sun and the rest of her castle still sleep, in her nightclothes because she feels guilty waking her maid, Brynn, to dress her only hours after she has sent her to bed.

When the horizon turns grey, Sansa rings for Brynn, lets her fret about, picking pretty things for her to wear, brushing her hair out (_so lovely,_ Brynn says every morning, _such lovely hair_) until Brynn is finally satisfied and Sansa feels like Brynn might stick an apple in her mouth and serve her on a silver platter, until Sansa feels like a plaything in a way that makes her feel ashamed and helpless.

Sansa sends for breakfast, takes up her post by the window, waits for Jon to come to her. Usually, Ghost accompanies him, seeking Sansa out in a way that makes her feel glad and awful at the same time, because she knows that no matter what, Ghost still belongs to Jon, never to her. Ghost has been absent more recently lately, and Jon looks strange and small without his direwolf at his side. Sansa could not say where Ghost goes, when he does, and Jon can only theorize that he prowls the wolfswood, looking for prey and open spaces. "I think he misses the Northern expanses," he tells Sansa, "Maybe he has even found other direwolves to run with."

Jon is always at her side, from breakfast and her mandatory time on her throne, through the noon meal and her afternoons, riding out with her when she goes, walking the Godswood with her when she stays, watching intently when she shyly practices her archery. She fears he compares her to himself and Robb, or worse, Arya, but he is always courteous and never even mentions how wretched she is. He even takes supper with her, sometimes sitting with her after as she takes care of more official business or reads or takes up her needlework. Then he bids her goodnight, sweetly, and retires to his own chambers. Sometimes, through the door that connects the chambers of the Lord and Lady of Winterfell, she can hear the low rumble of his voice as he talks to Ghost, and is glad for it. She thinks to wonder whether he can hear her talking to Lady, and hopes desperately that he cannot, for it is shameful how dependent she still is on her dead direwolf.

If Sansa had not made up her mind long ago that heroes do not exist, she thinks that Jon would be hers.

She tries to touch him, for practice. She treats it like a game to make it easier. _I must touch him three times today,_ she tells herself as she lies abed in the morning, and giddily congratulates herself when she manages it without even being too terrified.

It's small touches at first, the barest brush of one finger on his arm or hand, and sometimes, it still feels like too much.

But Sansa Stark has a stubborn streak that is often overlooked.

_I must touch him with a full hand today,_ she tells herself, terrified at her own audacity. But she does, when they're seated in the Great Hall, and she leans out of her throne and places a hand on his arm to capture his attention. It is the barest of touches, and she snatches her hand away almost immediately, but she _did_ it, one palm and five whole fingers.

_Twice,_ she tells herself the next morning, and lays her hand over his on the windowsill in the morning, cups his elbow when he holds the reins to her horse.

Jon, her Jon, gentle, lovely Jon, never once tries to touch her, never even encourages her touches, only rewards her with a smile when she manages one, and she could almost weep with his understanding.

Even as her touches get bolder and bolder, he never reciprocates. Even when she takes his arm in the Godswood, breathless with her own power, he does not cover her hand with his, does not press his arm in to trap her there, merely leaves his arm crooked, hers for as long as she wants it. She clings on, counting the steps, feeling as if she is underwater and the only way she will be able to breathe is to let go of this _man_. She makes it six steps, seven, and snatches her hand away as if his arm is on fire. He does not act offended, or surprised. He just looks at her and gives her one of those sweet half smiles.

The next day, she holds on for ten steps as they walk into the woods, and sixteen steps on the way out.

She still hears his name in her head when she allows her mind to wander, when she focuses on other things. Habits are hard to break, after all. She still wakes from her nightmares with his name on her lips.

She tells herself that it is only natural, after all these years of using his name like a mantra. She tries to ignore it when that half smile makes her warm inside, when his grey eyes make her feel _seen_ for once, when his quiet praise makes her absurdly proud of herself.

She almost succeeds.

…

The day that Sansa Stark comes at him with a longsword is one of the strangest of Jon Snow's life.

For one thing, she is _Sansa,_ and she is holding a _longsword._

For another, she is dragging it behind her on the ground, the blade bouncing along, and it makes Jon wince and clasp the hilt of Longclaw tighter. He sees Brienne make a face at this, as well.

He cannot imagine what Sansa could possible need with a longsword, or where she could have gotten it from in the first place.

"Sansa?" Jon says cautiously.

"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword," she says, simply.

Everything in him rebels at the thought of his sweet, good natured Sansa hacking some man's head off.

"I will do it," he says, "If the time comes."

"No," she says, emphatically, "The man who—"

"I will sentence him, then," Jon presses.

"That is not how it works, Jon, you know it is not. Would Father have ever let another man play executioner? Would Robb? Would _you?_"

Jon shakes his head, unwilling to lose this battle.

"Jon," she says, her voice softer, "Jon. It must be done. You must show me how."

"Why must I?" He asks, sounding a bit petulant to his own ears, "Sansa, you have no idea—"

"What it is like to watch someone have their head taken off?" She asks, eyes blazing, "What it is like to watch someone die? What it is like to _kill_ someone?" Her voice is shrill. "It is nothing I have not—"

She breaks her own sentence in two, looking at him as if she's said too much. "Jon," she says again, "Please. I trust you."

And it is the trust in that voice of hers, that voice that has no business talking about executions and swords, that truly breaks him. That, and the hand she reaches out, lays on his own hand, still on the hilt of Longclaw. He tries so hard not to cover her small hand with his other. He knows the rule of his own game.

He clenches his jaw, trying to stop his assent from spilling out. He looks at Brienne. _Why can she not do it?_ He thinks.

But Sansa had come to him. Sansa said that she trusted him.

"I sincerely hope, he says, and he notes that her hand is still on his, that this may be the longest she's ever held her hand upon him for, "that you _never_ have to use this knowledge."

He hates the way her eyes sparkle when she hears him say yes. He wants to give her other reasons to be happy, not this.

He has a hopeful, shameful thought as he leads her to the center of the courtyard, that Sansa may not even be able to _lift_ the sword, not like she is meant to. She is slight, after all, and has certainly never hefted a sword before. He wonders if that is why she dragged the sword all the way across the courtyard to him, because she could not lift it. Either that or she did not know how to hold it without cutting herself. He resolves to get her a sheath for her sword.

"First things first," Jon says, and allows a hint of humor into his eyes, "Does your sword have a name?"

"Not yet," she sighs, looking at it carefully, "I wish we still had Ice."

Jon stifles a laugh, because he will be surprised if Sansa can manage to lift _this_ longsword; she certainly could have never managed with the monstrosity that was her house's ancestral blade.

"Your sister named the blade I gave her Needle," Jon supplies, and watches Sansa's face, abruptly remembering that Sansa was not supposed to know this particular piece of information. It hardly changes, but he knows how adept she is at keeping her mask in place.

"A slight meant for me, no doubt," she sighs, "How rude of her." She considers the blade again, and says determinedly, "Mirror. I shall call it Mirror."

"A fine name for a fine sword," Jon admits, for the craftsmanship on the hilt is superb and the balance looks to be good, from what he can see. "And may I ask where you came by this longsword?"

"Alys Karstark sent it," Sansa says, "As a gift."

"Well," he says then, unable to postpone this ridiculous lesson any longer, "If you're sure…"

"If you truly gave my sister a sword, Jon Snow," she says scathingly, meeting him with sparking blue eyes, "Surely you have no qualms about a girl wielding a weapon."

_It is not girls,_ he wants to say, _it's you!_ _I am here to protect you and I will be damned if I let you subject yourself to playing executioner._

He does not say it. He knows how hypocritical he must seem to her, but this Sansa, gleaming in the sunlight of her kingdom, longsword in hand, looking so determined, so strong, is difficult to reconcile with the little girl in his head.

But that is just his problem. Sansa is not a little girl anymore. She is a woman: a woman who rules and shoots and, apparently, has no misgivings about swinging a sword.

"Alright," he says, "First things first. Please, for the love of all the Gods, do not drag it about anymore. It is terrible for the blade. I will see about getting you a sheath tomorrow."

She looks embarrassed, and lifts the blade from the ground. Jon holds out a hand. "May I see?"

She places the sword in it, and he tests its weight. It will not be impossible for her to use, but it will take some training. She will have to become stronger.

"Perhaps you should start with a smaller blade, or a wooden sword? Just at first?" He asks hopefully, but she's shaking her head before he even finishes his words.

"It must be Mirror," she says determinedly.

"Fine," he sighs, handing her sword back to her. "Lift it. As though you were about to swing it, and…"

He trails off, but she finishes unabashedly, "Chop someone's head off?"

He grimaces and nods. He only wants to see her grip, not put violent and bloody thoughts into her head.

She has good instinct. He is surprised she can fit both hands onto the hilt of a sword usually only used in a one-handed fashion, but hers are so slight that they both fit comfortably onto it. She looks at him questioningly.

"Good," he says, "Almost. Just… move your fingers a little… well, no. Put them back. Just relax a little…"

She sighs. "Show me, Jon."

He pulls Longclaw from his own scabbard, but she shakes her head at him. "Show me, Jon," she repeats.

He slowly resheathes Longclaw, unsure if she's really asking what he thinks she is. He moves in slowly, giving her time to pull away, to change her mind.

She does not.

He places his hands over hers on the pommel, so gently, still afraid she does not want his touch.

Sansa does not even flinch.

He steps in so that he is close to her, not touching, but close enough to rearrange her fingers on the hilt of her weapon.

"There," he says, when he is satisfied. "Like that. Feel the stability? Feel the balance in the blade?"

She nods, the wind catching her hair and whipping it across his jerkin. He is closer to her than he has been in years, he realizes, since long before he left for the Wall. He can smell her, from here, and she smells like winter. Her auburn hair gleams in the sun, looking golden red and lighter than normal.

He wishes Ghost was by his side, to lend him some sort of stability, but the beast has run off again, probably to the wolfswoods. Jon does not look into his head much anymore, but when he has recently, he has seen only trees.

"Jon?" Sansa asks, and he steps away.

"Good," he says. "Now all we need to practice is—"

"The swinging part," she finishes, grimly.

It is a small mercy that she does not want to learn how to fight, that Jon does not need to teach her how to thrust, parry, or block. That Jon does not have to imagine her in battle. Sansa wants, _needs,_ to know one thing and one thing only: how to swing Mirror into a glimmering arc, how to bring it down hard, with precision. How to deliver death.

A _very_ small mercy.

"I will fetch the block," he says.

…

Sansa's arms ache.

She feels it no matter what she does, whether she is eating or patting Ghost or doing embroidery. She embraces it, enjoys it. It makes her feel strong and capable.

She has been practicing every day—practicing with Mirror, and practicing letting Jon touch her. She is getting better at both.

Sansa is working on a tapestry in front of her roaring fire, Ghost curled up comfortingly on her toes. It should be beautiful, if she ever finishes, but she finds that she can't work on it for too long without beginning to feel terribly sad. She is picking out her whole family in bright thread—Her father, in the center, looking tall and strong and noble, holding Ice in one hand, the blade near shoulder height, her mother standing beside him with a long braid, looking out steadily, Robb, looking just like a King should, just like he did, handsome and valiant, his hand resting on Bran's shoulder, Bran who is standing tall, able and strong again, and there is Rickon, hand in hand with Arya, both wearing identical expressions of boldness. She puts her Aunt Lyanna on the other side of her father, the side not swarming with his own children, and she puts Jon in the middle of the two, right where he belongs, his grey eyes and inky curls indicating his place in the Stark clan.

She is trying to pick the perfect shade of grey for Jon's eyes, trying to find a color of thread that is both steely and warm, a grey with the slightest hint of lavender. It seems an impossible task to match his eyes, so she sighs and puts aside her needlework, looking at Jon himself, instead.

He is polishing Mirror as he just polished Longclaw moments earlier, taking the same tender care with each blade, stroking them as though they're living things, testing the edge with his thumb. The scene—the two of them and his wolf before the fire, sharing companionable silence and good wine—is so domestic and tender that it fills Sansa with a deep ache. She had missed this part about having a true family. Jon finishes with Mirror, finally satisfied, and sheathes her blade, looking up to find her staring at him intensely.

"Jon," she says in a low voice, "Have you ever…" she trails of, but looks in the direction of their swords, lying side by side.

"Killed someone?"

Sansa hesitates. "Executed." She says.

Jon presses his mouth into a grim line and nods, once. Sansa will not push him to talk about it. She has heard so little about his time at the Wall, north of it, but she has not told him anything of their time apart, either.

"It is beautiful," he says now, looking at her tapestry. He moves out of his chair, comes to sit on the floor at Sansa's feet, next to his direwolf.

He examines her work intently, and Sansa feels herself color, as though it is she he is looking at so attentively. She is scared, for a moment, that he will not like it, that he remembers their family differently than she does, but he reaches out one finger to trace Father's face tenderly, then Robb's.

"Sansa," he says, "You have forgotten yourself."

She bites her lip. She has not forgotten, exactly. She knows she has not added herself to the picture. She is just not sure _how_ to do so. She realizes now that her picture is not strictly accurate, for she has depicted her family as they were when she left them, so long ago. Robb could pass for a grown man, but Arya, Bran, and Rickon are all children, though they would be grown by now, yet Jon is _her_ Jon, the Jon of today, standing almost as tall as his father (_no, uncle_) and looking quite grown up. Does she stitch in her young self, or her present?

"I don't know how to add myself," she admits, and struggles to elaborate. But how can she explain that she is not even sure she fits into this family anymore, or how she fits in? Where would she put herself, in between the father that she watched die and the mother and brother she called traitors? Next to the sister that hated her or the young boys she would hardly know today? "It has been so long, Jon, since we have been like this… where do I fit, anymore?"

"There," he says, pointing to the spot on the tapestry at his own side, the spot that would have her nestled in between Jon and her Father, mirroring her mother on Ned's other side.

"I don't deserve it," she whispers, trying to keep her voice from breaking, "I betrayed them all. I am not a true Stark."

Jon turns to kneel before her, looking earnestly up into her face, and she searches his eyes for an answer that she will never find.

"Sansa," he says in a low, urgent tone, "Don't say that." He brings his hands up to her knees, slowly, testing. He has never touched her before without her express permission, and he watches her carefully, hands resting lightly, barely touching. She wants to flinch, but she does not. She gives him an infinitesimal nod, instead, and he settles his hands more firmly onto her knees. His palms feel warm and solid through the fine fabric of her gown, and she involuntarily gives a happy little shudder.

"You do not know what I did," she tells him. He would hate her, if he knew, and she could not bear it.

"You stayed alive," he says. "You survived, and that took bravery and strength, and you cannot fault yourself for doing it. You managed to leave King's Landing alive, and that took skill and intelligence."

She wants to sob, which is ridiculous. She is Sansa Stark, Sansa who is beaten and fooled and cannot do anything for herself. She is not Sansa who has someone telling her so sincerely how good she is.

"I am not brave," she says, fighting her tears, "I am not strong, or smart. I am just a silly little girl who trusts too easily, a caged bird singing their song."

His smile is sad, yet almost a little playful. "Have you not heard?" He asks her, "You are a wolf."

He is still looking up at her so openly, his hands on her knees, a dark curl falling into his eyes. She wants to push it back, and before she can consult her common sense, before she can council herself against it, she has reached out and is catching it on a pale index finger, smoothing it back into the rest of his unruly hair, stroking once more. His hair feels soft and a little springy under her fingers, different from the smooth coolness of her own hair, but no less pleasant.

He is watching her more carefully now, as if he is unsure what she will do next.

She drops her hands into her lap, and her eyes along with them. "Oh, Jon," she says softly, "I fear you should have never come to me."

…

_I would do anything for you, _he thinks about saying, _give anything for you._

"Why?" He actually says.

She pauses a moment, thinking, and says slowly, "I fear it will not be enough for you, here. That after all you have done, all you have accomplished, that you will regret sacrificing it all, breaking your vows, to come to a drafty castle and babysit a little girl who is queen over almost nothing. That you will resent me for making you come here. It was terribly selfish of me to ask you to give it all up."

There are so many thing that Jon wants to say to her that he hardly knows where to start.

"First of all, you did not _make_ me do anything. I wanted to come home, to come to you. If I had not wanted to, I would have just told you that I did not want to break my vows. And do not feel guilty about that. It was not the first time I have broken them."

She looks at him a little curiously. They have never spoken about their time before _now,_ and she does not know about the time he fled the Wall for Robb, or about Ygritte. He knows almost nothing about her journey, either, only that she had escaped King's Landing as Tyrion Lannister's bride and stopped in the Eyrie on her way north.

"And will you _please,_" he presses on, ignoring her silent plea to tell her what he means about breaking his vows, "stop thinking of yourself as a useless little girl? You are a grown woman, and a great queen, and I will happily serve you all the days of my life. I have decided to rebuild Winterfell with you, and then rebuild your Kingdom, and I'm afraid that I will not let you chase me away."

She quirks her lips up into the little half smile she used to wear when she was trying to hide how pleased she was, like when Robb complimented her on something, or her father called her a great lady. Jon thinks it may be the first time that he has put this particular expression on her face, and it makes him strangely proud.

She slides out of her chair to the floor on her knees, mirroring him, and he snatches his hands away from her knees before they can slide up her body and end up somewhere inappropriate.

"When you came," she confesses quietly, looking him dead in the eyes, "I wanted so badly to embrace you. I almost did."

Jon does not know whether she is implying that propriety held her back, or fear. He does not care. "You should have. I wanted you to."

Her face flushes, and she almost stammers over her words, nervous. "Could I? That is… now? Could I?"

He does not answer, but he does not need to. She has made up her mind, he can see it on her face.

She leans up on her knees, slides her arms slowly and deliberately around his neck. He does not know if he is allowed to reciprocate, so he stays stationary, waiting for a cue.

It comes after a moment, after she has allowed herself to relax into his chest. "Hold me, Jon," she whispers, and his arms band around her almost without his consent. He fears that he is crushing her, that he has gone too far, too fast, but he feels her give a little shudder and then she turns her head into him, brushing her nose along the side of his neck, and she burrows into him. He feels the whisper of her eyelashes against his throat as she lets her eyes flutter shut, and he crushes her against him, sliding a hand up into her cool hair and cupping the back of her head like she is a wee babe that he is scared to drop.

It is a bit awkward, their knees still touching and her bowed into him, half crouched, but Jon does not care. He will hold her for as long as she wants him.

"I thought of you," she says on a whisper, and he allows his chin to rest on the top of her hair, folding her into him even more fully, "Even after the others had died, I knew you were still alive somewhere, and it gave me strength. Sometimes, the thought of you was the only thing that made me want to stay alive any longer. I almost gave up, so many times."

"I am glad you did not."

She does not say anything else. Jon is amazed that she has allowed him to remain with her for so long, wonders if she has fallen asleep against him, for she has gone quiet and still.

Eventually, she pulls back and he lets her go, helps her stand. He whistles for Ghost and follows Sansa to her door, unsure what to say or do. Has anything changed? How is he to act? He feels as though she is almost more vulnerable now than ever, now that she has let one of her walls fall and is open to attack. She looks almost as unsure as he feels.

He reaches out to brush the back of her hand with a finger, to reassure her. "I will see you tomorrow," he says, and turns to go.

"Jon," she calls after him, once he has gone a few steps, and he turns back to her. "Thank you," she says softly, and he gives her a smile and a nod.

He lets himself into his room and hears her door thud shut.

…

Sansa hears Brienne talking, but she does not hear a word she says. She is distracted, again, watching Jon out the window in the practice yard, sparring with another man, sword flashing, agile and quick, much more graceful than she ever is with Mirror. Even after all these weeks, Sansa can only manage a proper swing about one time in ten, and she still cannot practice for too long without her arms shaking and her grip failing, and then Jon makes her stop, for he thinks it dangerous for her to handle a blade if she is not feeling her best. She knows he thinks it dangerous for her to handle a blade under _any_ circumstance, but she refuses to allow herself to be cowed, and he goes along with it, lips tightened, as if to stop himself from saying anything about it.

She is learning to stand up for herself, and the sword is a necessary step, though she tries not to think too hard about what she is practicing _for,_ because when she thinks about executions, beheadings…

Sansa tries to refocus on what Brienne is saying, but it is a lost cause. It is only a small mercy that she spends so much of her time gazing out her window normally that Brienne will not think it is odd, will not know what she is staring at, _who _she is staring at, and remark about it.

Even now, more than a week after she asked him to hold her, she can still feel the shape of his arms tight around her, the heat on the back of her head where his hand slipped into her hair. It is the first time that the ghost of a man's touch has not made her feel dirty and violated—on the contrary, Sansa must daily stop herself from seeking out his embrace again, and sometimes she is not strong enough, and allows herself a hug when he bids her goodnight, but only ever a short one, and only ever in private.

Sansa is worried that she will become too dependent on him, that he will leave her or die as so many others have and she will be left floundering again, but she must admit to herself that she desires his embrace with a ferocity that almost scares her, that she wants to feel safe and worthy again, as he made her feel.

"Yes, Brienne," Sansa says finally, vaguely aware that her guard has stopped speaking, though she still is not sure what exactly had been said, "I am sure whatever you think should be fine."

"Right," Brienne says, "I will call for your noon meal, then?"

"Yes, thank you," Sansa says, turning to give Brienne a nod. She turns back to the window, but the men in the courtyard have disappeared.

Sansa knows that Jon will appear in her doorway in a moment, to join her for her meal like he always does, and tries to compose herself so that he will not suspect that she has been watching. She does not think he has seen her.

She is startled badly as he lays a hand on her shoulder quite suddenly, and she flinches back, pressing herself against the stone wall.

"Sansa, I am so sorry," he says, looking worried that he has harmed her, "I should have announced myself."

"No," she says breathlessly, trying to calm herself, _it is just Jon, he will not hurt me,_ "I should have heard you coming. I was absorbed in my thoughts. You walk very quietly."

"I have learned," he says wryly, and she wonders, as he so often does when he forgets himself and drops little hints at his past life, _where_ he learned and what for. He reaches for her, gingerly, like he has not since before that night when he became more liberal with his touches and she started drinking them up eagerly.

"It is alright, Jon," she reassures him, taking his hand and squeezing, "It was not your fault. I'm not harmed."

He still looks worried, but he nods and pulls out her chair just as Eldric enters the room with a massive tray of food, staggering under its weight.

"Your Grace," he says, panting, as he sets it on the table and gives Sansa a little bow, "Lord Snow," he says to Jon, and then leaves to fetch a wine jug.

Sansa notices Jon's mouth pressed thin, like it is when she practices with Mirror, as if he wants to say something but will not, out of respect to her.

"You do not like it when they call you that," she observes, wondering why she has not noticed before now, why he has not said anything.

"No, it is fine."

She looks at him steadily, and he sighs. "It is only that… well, they called me that at the Wall. It was not a compliment. It is fine, honestly. What else is there to call me?"

"They will call you whatever you want to be called."

"Lord Snow is fine, Sansa. I am used to it. I swear it."

"Why did they call you that?" She says after a moments silence, "At the Wall, I mean?" She suddenly realizes that she wants to know what happened to Jon in the years that they were apart, what transformed him from the boy she remembers, her bastard brother, into the man that she sees today, wants to know as she did not before. It seems important to know now, somehow.

"They thought I was presumptuous when I first arrived there, that I acted as though I was above them. I'm afraid I _did_ rather act as if I was above them. When I left here, I thought that the Watch was made up of honorable men, and it is—but not in the way that I thought. Many of them were—are—criminals or debtors before they take the black. I was not prepared for that. But I got used to it, and the name too. It's doesn't really bother me now, honest."

Sansa nods, and Jon says suddenly, "I am sorry, I didn't mean to ramble on."

"No," Sansa says, eyes wide and earnest, "I want to know. I would like to hear all about it, all the years we were apart. That is… if you are willing to tell me. I will understand if it is too painful."

"It is not painful, exactly," he says, "But it is not particularly interesting, either."

"I want to know," Sansa says again. She is glad he does not ask _her_ about those missing years, or offer to trade stories. She does not know if she can talk about it, yet.

But Jon talks. He tells her about going north of the Wall, about the wildlings. He tells her of a girl named Ygritte, _touched by fire,_ he says, _just like you._ He tells her of the attacks on the wall, of becoming Lord Commander. He tells her slowly, watching her face, of being stabbed by his own men, of dying, of being saved by the Red Priestess and released from his vows. He tells her of the day that her raven came to him, the day he left the wall, and then he stops, abruptly.

She notices that he does not speak of their new Queen to the South. They never discuss Daenerys Targaryen, though Sansa feels her silent presence between them on occasion. She's never met the woman herself, but they've corresponded, of course—first as subject and ruler, for when the Dragon Queen first took the Iron Throne and Sansa returned to Winterfell, she was more than happy to keep her head down and her knee bent to try to avoid the execution she was not sure would not still come, and then as monarch to monarch.

Sansa had been surprised when she had been offered the kingdom of the North, for she had never even met the Queen, much less showed her any allegiance, and she still is not sure whether her gift was restitution in some way, perhaps for Robb's service in conveniently destroying some of Daenerys' enemies before she returned to Westeros or because of all the harm that befell the Starks—though Sansa does not know why Daenerys would feel guilty or pitying enough to gift her a whole kingdom—or whether it was simply because Her Grace had claimed enough with the Southron lands and had enough of a responsibility keeping them under her rule and thus had no use, or desire, for a land frozen and barren and crawling with terrible monsters. Sansa suspects the latter. She still has mornings when she awakens and finds herself amazed at her possession of the cold, metal crown. She would have been happy with her very life, would have been grateful to have been simply Lady Stark of Winterfell. Even being Warden of the North would have been an honor beyond her imagining. But Queen?

She tries to refocus on Jon, watching his lips form the story she begged to hear. She feels sure that Jon has also had correspondence with Daenerys: they are, after all, family now. And if the rumors are true, if the Queen in the South is barren as has been prophesied, Sansa would not be at all surprised if Jon should, in some decade's time, find himself atop the Iron Throne, to avoid further bloodshed after her death. After all, he is her heir apparent. Yet Jon is, surprisingly, not with his Aunt, not being carefully trained to run her Kingdom.

It occurs to her now that she may owe Jon's presence here to Daenerys, her new royal role to Jon. Could it be that she ordered him to come here? To watch her, to guide her, to control her? Could _this_ be why Sansa suddenly has a Kingdom—because his aunt trusts Jon to keep the North under her yoke in actuality, while Sansa holds it in name? Just as suddenly, she shakes the thought away. She knows Jon, now better than ever, and he is straightforward and honest. She's sure that if he were here under such a pretext, he would have felt honor bound to inform her of it by now. And even should it be true, she will not dwell on the cold thought any longer.

Either way, he is with Sansa now, and she flushes just at the thought that he could have possibly chosen her over all of it, over a Kingdom, over the dragons, over the beautiful queen. She quashes this in herself, reminds herself that he returned to Winterfell, not to her, but it still sparks a feeling of something warm and a little tingling deep inside her.

She does not know what Jon told his aunt, his Queen, to avoid joining her in King's Landing if he _was _given a choice in the matter, for surely he was asked to. Perhaps he told her he would rather not break his vows, would rather stay on the wall. If that is true, Daenerys knows now that he lied to her, and though Sansa should fear her wrath at this, she finds that it is hard to fear a woman she has never met on a throne leagues away, especially with Jon at her side.

Dragonfire may run through the veins of the Targaryens, but Sansa is a Stark: she has been molded by the North, frozen and hardened by it until she is unmoving and unyielding, hard as the Wall itself, crafted from the same ice, to look beautiful and sparkling and even delicate from afar, only revealing its true nature under close inspection.

She sees the same ice in Jon and always has, but now that she knows to look, she sees the fire there too, the way his grey eyes flash almost lilac when he becomes agitated or happy, when he spars in the courtyard, or when he speaks passionately about something, as he is doing now.

Somehow, in him, the fire and ice do not negate each other, they build upon each other to form something new and unusual, something Sansa has never seen in anybody before. Something that fascinates her.

She sees quite clearly now that Jon is the chain, forged in fire, strengthened in ice, that links Westeros together: Jon is the blood that binds two houses, two queens, and two kindgoms to each other, the man that all future rulers of the Seven Kingdoms will call father, for with no children of her own, Jon is as much her heir as he is Daenerys', and his descendants will someday rule the whole continent, and rule it well, if they are anything like Jon.

"Well," he says, and Sansa refocuses on him as he finishishes his story, "now I am here." He looks almost surprised at himself. Sansa knows he does not usually talk this much, especially not about himself.

"Thank you, Jon," she says softly, "I am glad you told me." She can almost feel him biting his tongue to stop himself from asking about her, so she says, "I will tell you someday, I swear it. I just… cannot. Not right now. I cannot talk about it."

"You do not have to tell me ever if you do not wish it, Sansa."

"I do wish it," she says earnestly, "I just cannot. Not right now."

Eldric appears to clear their plates, and Sansa realizes that she has not eaten hardly anything, absorbed in Jon's story and her own thoughts, and she is sure he has eaten even less, but she does not feel remotely hungry.

"I think I will visit the Godswood," she says as Jon pulls back her chair, "Will you walk with me?"

…

Jon wakes with a pang in the pit of his stomach.

The morning feels like any other—Ghost curled in front of the fireplace, Jon's furs kicked to the foot of his bed, for he has spent so long in the deep North that sleeping under them feels stifling.

For a moment, Jon almost cannot remember why this day should be so gut wrenchingly _terrible,_ and then he remembers and almost cannot breathe with the pain of it.

It is Robb's name day.

Jon rolls over, fighting back tears, for he is a grown man: he _does not cry._

Robb should _be_ here, strong and vital, with a pretty young wife and perhaps even a child. He should be here with Jon and Sansa, rebuilding the north, filling the castle with his reassuring presence. He should be there to slap Jon on the back and give Sansa the love she so desperately needs. He would be so _proud_ of Sansa, of the woman she's become, and it makes Jon ache to think that he'll never be there to see her rule so fairly and gracefully.

_Sansa._ He thinks that Robb was always Sansa's favorite sibling, even though Sansa was not Robb's, and for whatever reason, that thought makes him unspeakably sad—that thought breaks him, and he feels a traitorous tear roll hot down his cheek.

Jon wants to lay in bed all day, to wallow in the wretchedness of it all, but he realizes how much Sansa must be feeling what he is feeling now and there is a stronger urge to go to her, to be with her.

He hears a gentle tap at his door and almost answers it, but then the door—not the main door into the hall, which he has bolted for the night, but the connecting door between the Lord and Lady's chambers, between his and Sansa's chambers—swings open and Sansa stands framed in it, still in her night shift.

Jon leans up on his elbows, staring at her, absurdly grateful that he slept in a shirt last night instead of just his smallclothes. It is one of the shirts she has sewn for him since he's arrived, one that she had spent one of their nights together making, the very picture of ladylike perfection with her needle and thimble clicking softly and her head bent over her work. The shirt is white, still one of his few garments that isn't grim black, though Sansa is making a concerted effort to add new hues to his wardrobe, and one of his favorites. Jon tells himself that it is because her workmanship is superb, her stitches strong yet small and neat enough to almost be invisible, and not because the time and effort she spent making it were focused just on _him_, not because he imagines he can still smell her on it, feel her soft fingers brush against him when he wears it.

He's still startled to see her there, for she has never used this door before, and she has rarely even been in his chambers. They spend their time together in her solar, not his.

She approaches his bed without words, padding over on bare feet, Ghost rising equally silently and following her to the side of the bed, leaping up onto it and curling up at Jon's feet. Sansa stares at Jon a moment and then reaches out and wipes a tear from his cheek. Her eyes are not red or wet, and Jon feels even more ashamed that he should be crying while Sansa is so strong.

She puts one knee up on the bed, then the other, and crawls over Jon to the middle of the mattress where she curls up, facing him, still looking at him with a steady sort of acceptance.

Jon wonders why she came to him, what he could possible do for her, but he realizes that he and Sansa are probably the only ones in the castle who even know what this day is, much less feel the crushing weight of it.

"I miss him so much," she whispers brokenly after a moment, and Jon cannot help himself, he reaches for her, draws her in, fits her head against his neck and strokes her hair.

"Me too," he agrees, voice hoarse with tears.

"I thought I would be angry with him forever," Sansa says, voice still low and confidential, and now Jon has no idea what she is talking about, "I trusted him so much. _Loved _him so much. I always thought he would come for me, rescue me. But he never came."

Jon has no words for her. He thinks of the games they used to play, all of them together: Sansa a great lady, Jon and Robb noble knights, Arya a horrible monster—Sansa always said it was because she looked just like one, but Jon told her once it was because she had the best scary noises, even better than Robb's, and that cheered her up a bit. Sansa didn't usually play games with them, not once she got older, but she played the part of the maiden so well and the others loved it so much that she condescended to play. Bran and Rickon were allowed to be squires, but Rickon was so young that he usually lost interest halfway through and played his own games with leaves and sticks. Monsters and Maidens was Bran's favorite game, so they played it often: Arya would steal Sansa, hide her somewhere deep in the Godswoods, and Jon and Robb and Bran were to find her, rescue her from the clutches of the horrendous creature who had stolen her from her prince. They usually allowed Bran to rescue her, for he loved it so much, or Robb would sweep her into his arms and carry her out of the woods, triumphant, but Jon vividly remembers the one occasion when he was allowed to rescue Sansa, how he collected her into his arms and gave her smooth cheek a kiss for Bran's benefit before leading her out of the woods and into the sunlight.

He wonders if Sansa thought of those games in King's Landing, imagined Robb throwing open the chamber door and pulling Sansa onto the back of his horse, taking her somewhere safe. He wonders how much it hurt that he never came for her, that he never rescued her, the sweet young girl who put so much stock in fairy tales and folk songs and strong men on high horses.

"I still had not forgiven him when… when he died. I wish I had."

"Robb loved you," Jon tells her. "He would have come for you. When he could."

He imagines noble, honorable Robb, how hard it must have been for him, knowing that his sister was at the mercy of the Lannisters, knowing he could not save her without alienating his entire army. He thinks Robb probably hated himself for that.

"I thought he was perfect, when I was a girl. I thought he was everything a man ought to be."

"He was," Jon says firmly. He has his own memories of Robb, of being accepted by him, of being treated like a true brother. He still cherishes the thought that Robb loved him, at least a little.

"No." Sansa says, "But he was a good man. A great man."

Jon thinks suddenly that Robb was hardly a man at all, when he died—so young, too young. Younger then than either Sansa or he is now.

She is silent for a while, laying in his arms, lost in her thoughts just as Jon is lost in his.

"He should be here," she says vehemently, "He should be King. He would be so much better than I."

"You rule well," Jon reassures her, but she shakes her head, her nose brushing back and forth against his skin.

"There must always be a Stark in Winterfell," she recites, and adds, "most days, I do not think that I am Stark enough to count."

Jon can't understand how she doesn't see it—how her people love her and respect her, that no matter what she thinks, she is a great queen—but he thinks suddenly how young she truly is, not even twenty name days old, and how new, how unsure it all must seem.

"You are a Stark," he says fiercely, "Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Besides," he adds, trying to lighten his tone, "Better you than me. I am not a Stark at all."

"You are half a Stark," she says sensibly, "And I am half a Stark."

He almost corrects her again, but when he looks into her Tully blue eyes, he sees what she means.

"Two halves make a whole," he says.

"Maybe the two of us together are Stark enough to hold Winterfell," she whispers back.

There is a knock at Jon's door—his main door—and Sansa looks up at him and shakes her head. She clearly does not want anyone to know where she is, and Jon understands her need to hide.

"Yes?" Jon calls, not releasing her.

"Lord Snow?" A male voice calls through the door, "Will you be taking breakfast with Her Grace this morning?"

Jon wonders if they have discovered Sansa's empty bed yet, whether they will tear apart the castle looking for her.

"No," he calls, "I will eat later."

He hears footsteps retreating from the door, and looks back down into Sansa's upturned face.

"Jon?" She says in a quavering voice, "I think I want to tell you. What happened to me."

…

Sansa does not tell him everything. She talks for what feels like hours, unable to look him in the eyes, taking reassurance from his arms around her, his chest under her cheek, from his scent in her nose and Ghost's fur on her feet.

She should not feel safe here with him, like this, but she does, and she abruptly remembers how she used to curl up with Robb like this, on cold nights when she woke from nightmares and padded to his room on small bare feet. She was young enough to still suck her thumb when nobody was looking, before Bran was born, maybe before Arya. She would beg to stay with him and Robb would always let her, helping her onto his big bed and piling all his warmest furs over her, draping a child's arm over her waist and telling her confidently that she was safe now, now that she was with him. Now that they were together.

"I will be Lord one day," he would tell her matter-of-factly, "And when I am, I will never let anybody ever hurt you."

And she believed him, and allowed herself to be lulled to sleep by his steady breath and the way he would hum a little right when he was on the verge of sleep without even noticing. Everyone in Winterfell knew that when Lady Sansa's bed was found empty, she could be found under her brother's furs, the pair curled together like wolf pups, waking with matching tousled auburn hair and matching sleepy blue eyes.

There is still a pain to thinking of Robb, but it is a sweet sort of pain, and Sansa almost smiles at the memory of the two of them piled over and under each other, tangled up, before they grew up and parted ways, before their siblings could intrude; she almost smiles at the memory of letting herself be lulled into a feeling of safety while her older brother hummed her to sleep.

Jon's arms feel safe to her now, just as Robb's did then, but now she knows it is a falsehood, that no one can ever _really_ protect her, yet she clings to the illusion, keeping her head tucked down to avoid his gaze as she talks. But she does not tell him all.

She tells him almost everything. She tells him about their journey south, tells him of Lady and feels his arms tighten sympathetically when she tells him of her direwolf's death. She tells him of watching her father die, even after she begged for his life, of realizing that Arya had vanished and she was truly alone. She tells him of Joffrey, of the beatings and humiliations she suffered at his hands. She tells him of their engagement being broken, of Margarey Tyrell and Sansa's own surprise marriage to Tyrion. She tells him of hearing of the Red Wedding, of her guilt at having denounced her family as traitors and letting them die. She tells him of Joffrey's death, of fleeing the city in disguise with Petyr Baelish and she tells him of her time in the Vale. She even tells him how she helped Lord Baelish through the moon door.

She doesn't tell him of Joffrey's threats on her wedding night, of the memory of Petyr between her legs, of Harry holding her down.

But she tells him everything else.

He does not speak for a while when she finishes talking, and her heart thuds hard. What must he think of her? She has just confessed to a murder, to watching her father die, to abandoning her family to the Lannisters.

But he pulls her closer, onto him, covers his body with hers, and whispers into her hair, "Oh, Sansa. My dear, sweet girl."

_How could I have doubted him?_ She thinks as she turns her face into his neck, eyes squeezed shut to stop the onslaught of tears, for she has not cried in a lifetime and she will be _damned_ if she starts now. But Jon is still whispering things to her, beautiful things, and he still loves her, insane as that is after everything she has just told him, and she cannot stand the relief at having somebody else know, and before she can stop herself, she has allowed a sob past her lips and a tear past her eyelashes and Jon does not say anything when he feels the wetness against his neck, only holds her tighter, though it hardly seems possible, and keeps whispering reassurances into her hair.

She is crying for him, and for Robb, and for everything they have lost, and yes, she is crying for herself, too, and when she remembers the tear she wiped from Jon's cheek this morning, she feels a bit better.

She cries for a long time and he lets her, until her eyes are red and swollen and her throat aches and she knows she must look a mess, and she is almost positive she has gotten snot all over him, and even then he does not say a word, does not pull away, only lets her sniffle into his warm skin until she has cried herself dry.

Then Ghost is nosing at her face, though Jon tries to push him away, and the direwolf's warm tongue is lapping away the salt, and Sansa is _giggling_ of all things, as though she had not just been sobbing a moment before and she feels horrible for it until she sees Jon smiling that rare smile at her, watching her having her face bathed by a giant, ferocious forest creature until she pushes Ghost away and realizes that she is still lying in the cradle of Jon's arms and has no intention of moving.

She stops laughing abruptly, watching his face, so close to hers, watching his smile fall away as he looks at her too.

There is a crashing bang at his door, as though someone is trying to break it down, and Sansa jumps.

"Your Grace?" Brienne bellows, "Are you in there?"

Sansa wants to stay silent, to stay hidden, but she knows that if she does not answer, Brienne will actually break down Jon's door, and so she sits up and calls, "Yes, Brienne."

"Are you hearing petitioners today, my Lady?"

Sansa knows she still looks a mess, and furthermore, she does not _want_ to see anybody today, but she hesitates. A queen has her duties, after all.

Jon covers a hand with his, and says quietly, "You deserve a day, Sansa."

"I am not feeling very well," Sansa calls to her guard, still looking at Jon, "I think you had better cancel everything."

"Yes, Your Grace," Brienne says, and then "Would you like some food sent up?"

Sansa almost says no, but she feels hunger deep in her belly, and so she says, "Send it up to my chambers. You may leave it there. I will fetch it when I am ready."

"Of course, Your Grace," Brienne says, and Sansa hears her move away from the door.

If she has her way, Sansa will see nobody today, nobody except Jon Snow.

…

Jon watches her carefully across the length of the table as she takes a sip of wine.

She has seemed better since she told him of her years alone, happier, more open.

Yet Jon had noted the way her story had developed holes when she told him of the Vale, noted the way she cut sentences short or abruptly changed the subject.

He knows there are things she did not tell him, perhaps things that are painful for her to discuss, things she is ashamed of. Yet she had told him painful things, she had told him shameful things. She had told him that she watched her father die, that she had been beaten, that she had killed a man.

Jon thinks of the way she shied away from his touch, from any man's touch, and knows quite suddenly the things she hid from him.

"Sansa, did he touch you?" He blurts out, unthinkingly.

And just as abruptly, he hates himself, would willingly walk up to the tallest tower and throw himself out the window, for she goes pale and sets her goblet down with a dull sounding clang.

He opens his mouth to apologize, to throw himself at her feet and beg her to forgive him, but she beats him to it.

"Which one?" She says, and he hates himself more.

"Sansa, I am so sorry. I did not mean… you do not have to…"

"No," She says calmly, "talking about it will not change it. I think I should tell you. I think it would help."

Jon wishes Ghost was there to snarl at him, to go to Sansa and lend her the reassurance she seems to take from the beast, but the damn wolf has run off again and Jon knows he will not be back until late that night, until he comes scratching at Jon's door, forcing him to get out of bed and let him in the room.

"Sansa," Jon starts again, but Sansa starts talking.

"Joffrey did not. He wanted to. He threatened to, _promised_ to, but he died. Unfortunately." Sansa spits the word out, clearly meaning exactly the opposite. She takes a deep breath, and looks at her plate. Jon notices that she does not look at him when she talks of these things, as though she does not want to see his reaction. He wonders if he should go to her.

"Tyrion did not. He said we did not have to consummate our marriage until I was ready, and he was as good as his word, and I was never ready. He has a sense of honor, hard as it is to believe. His own sort of honor, and his own sort of kindness. But wherever he is, alive or dead—he is not my husband. Not truly. I am not a Lannister, no matter what the papers say."

"You were never one of them," Jon agrees vehemently.

"Harry did," she says, and Jon blanches. "He thought it was his right as my 'betrothed.'"

"No man has the right—" Jon starts, but she is still talking, and so he shuts up and listens, determined to hear her out, for as painful as it is for him, it is assuredly much worse for her, and besides, he asked for it, bullying her as he did.

"Petyr did. He was the worst. He pretended to be my father, and then he _touched _ me. He—" Sansa breaks herself off, swallows hard, "He called me Catelyn once. That was the worst part, for some reason. It was bad enough that he… did what he did, but that I was only a cheap replacement for my _mother?_ That was what made me feel as if I was rotting from the inside."

Jon moves to her, fairly runs to her, drops to his knees in front of her. He would not be surprised if she hit him, would welcome it, even, expects her to walk away from him, to push him away, but she raises her eyes instead, looking at him with those blue eyes.

Not Tully blue, he realizes now. Frost blue.

Winter blue.

"I will never," he whispers, almost snarls, frightening himself with his ferocity, because he is a wolf too, and a dragon, "Let anyone hurt you again."

"You cannot promise that," she says.

"I can try."

He reaches for her hands, and she lets him take them, press his forehead to them, bury his head in her lap, and she pulls a hand from his grasp and strokes his hair, carding her fingers through his curls, and Jon feels even worse, for it is as if she is comforting him when it should be the other way around.

"I am glad I told you," she whispers, "I feel a bit better now. Lighter."

"It was not your fault." He says to her knee, "It was never your fault. It was them, all of those horrible men, and may the Gods curse them for what they did to you. But you should never feel guilty for it. Do not let them make you feel dirty."

She lifts his chin with one hand until he looks at her, and he sees a glimmer of a smile on her lips.

"Jon," she whispers, and she leans down and presses a kiss to his brow, slides off her chair and into his lap, burying her face into the crook of his neck and clinging to him.

"Do not let them make you feel dirty," he repeats, kissing her ear through the curtain of her hair, "You aren't. You are perfect."

"It is better with you here," she confesses, "I feel safer with you here."

"I will keep you safe," he vows. He does not need a Sept to make a vow, or a Weirwood tree. He swears then and there in the sight of all the Gods, old and new. He swears it to those who failed her, to Ned and to Robb, he swears it to Catelyn, and he swears it to himself. He swears it to everyone who would ever hurt her, and he says it again for good measure. "I will keep you safe."

…

The day her life changes is a week before her twentieth name day, exactly.

Her life has changed many times, yet she thinks that, in the future, she will think of this day as the day her life changed, for good.

She performs her first successful execution on that day.

Although, it was not really an execution at all.

Jon approaches her in the courtyard after breakfast, Mirror in one hand and a dead pig in the other.

He hands her the sword without a word, then drags the pig carcass over to the block, arranging it so that one leg is positioned over the top of it, ready for her blade.

Sansa almost cannot do it, but she gives herself a mental shake. If she cannot practice on a _dead pig,_ how is she ever supposed to perform a real execution? And after she put up such a fuss about having a sword and learning how to use it, and everything.

She is ashamed of herself.

_You __are__ a Stark, _she tells herself firmly. So she steels herself and approaches the block.

She hefts the sword, swings it high, brings it down with ease. There's a muffled slicing sound that makes her shudder, and she forces the thought of her father's execution out of her mind. The pig's leg falls off the block, neatly severed.

"Good, Sansa," Jon says, "Nice and clean."

Despite the fact that she has just dismembered a dead pig, his praise makes her feel warm inside, accomplished.

They sup together as they almost always do, Ghost's typical place under the table empty again. He seems to be gone more days than not, recently.

He asks her about Arya, carefully watching her.

"Might she not still be alive?" He asks.

"She might," Sansa acknowledges, "And if she is, I hope she returns to us." She is not lying. She does miss her little sister, different as they might have been. Arya would find her sister much changed, and Sansa suspects that Arya would like this version of her—the version that had just hacked apart a whole pig with a _longsword_—much better than she had seemed to like the previous version.

Yet Sansa suspects that Arya's presence at Winterfell would change everything. Jon and Arya had always been so close, and she worries, selfishly, that Arya would take him from her in some way, take the affection and approval that Sansa thrives on, take Jon's attention and make him realize that Sansa is still only a silly little girl.

And then there is Arya's way of making Sansa feel… inadequate. She has always felt so, even as she denounced her sister as a wild creature, not a _lady,_ even as she pretended to be the better one. She is not stupid. She knows that most everyone always liked Arya better, at least at Winterfell. Father, Robb, Jon, Rickon—they all preferred Arya to Sansa. Probably Bran, as well. And it always made Sansa feel so terribly lonely and unsure.

"I do not know that she would return, though," Sansa says out loud, "I don't think she has forgiven me."

"What could there possibly be to forgive?" Jon asks.

"She blames me for Father's death," Sansa said quietly.

"That is ridiculous," Jon says, "You _saved _ him, or would have, if Joffrey had been any kind of King at all. You cannot be blamed for Joffrey's ineptitude and cruelty, may he rot."

"He was my betrothed," Sansa says, "Arya saw me as being on his side. She saw that I humiliated father by making him confess to treason, and she saw me standing on the block beside him as he died. I know she did, I saw her in the crowd that day. And she ran off before I could explain, not that she would have listened. Besides, there was the whole debacle along the Kingsroad. With…" She pauses, steels herself, and finishes, "When Lady was killed."

Jon knows Arya as well as she, perhaps better, and they both know that in Arya's mind, this is all definitive proof. She expects him to acknowledge this, to accept that her sister probably hates her to this day.

"We will make her listen," Jon says firmly instead, "When she returns. Sometimes she just needs a firm talking to. And I doubt it will even be necessary, Sansa. She is a smart girl, she would have known the pressures you were under, or have realized it eventually."

"She won't forgive me," Sansa says miserably.

"She will," Jon insists, "Sansa, you need to forgive _yourself."_

Sansa blinks down the table at him, looking at her earnestly, as he always does when he reassures her, wearing that same frank expression as he tells her how good she is, that expression that always makes her feel horribly guilty for forcing him to validate her, to hold her hand as she learns to walk again, that soft, open expression that she needs so much.

She falls in love with Jon Snow that day.

She buzzes with the knowledge of it, the thousands of urges she has to go to him, take his hands, touch his face, his hair, to hold him, kiss him.

She holds herself into her chair, white knuckled, so that she does not.

And then she remembers why he is looking at her like that, like he might even care for her, miracle of miracles, and she nods. "I will try," she says breathlessly, to him and to herself. _I will try to forgive myself. I will try to keep hold of myself._

He rises from the table, comes to pull out her chair, and Sansa feels jittery and nervous, which is ridiculous, for they do this every day. She is used to this, comfortable with this.

She is not used to the urge to bring a finger to his face, to trace his strong jaw, shadowed with beard, his straight nose, his lips…

She shudders, and he takes her elbow, his hand warm. "Sansa?"

"I—," she breathes, tempted to apologize, not knowing what for, and they walk together to the door.

She slips her arms around his neck before they reach it, pulls him to her, her face in his neck like it belongs there, and he returns her embrace easily.

She pulls her head back, still in his arms, and turns her face to look into his, and he is right there, only inches away.

And Sansa Stark, who thought she would never let another man touch her, who never thought to want a husband or a lover, discovers that she _wants_ to kiss him.

She _wants_ him.

She brings one hand up to his brow, pushing the curl that falls there back, threading her hand through his soft, dark hair.

She rises on her toes, bringing her face closer to his, closer, closer… _hoping…_

"Sansa," he says, sounding as breathless as her, turning his face a fraction of an inch to the side, and her heart skips a beat, her palms turn clammy and cold, she feels her face flush in shame and humiliation.

"We are not the Lannisters," he whispers, closing his eyes, but not before she's seen his pupils blown wide, and she knows enough about men to know what that means, the grey of his eyes only a slender ring, looking almost purple in the dim light.

Sometimes, it is hard to remember that he is half Targaryen. Sometimes, it is hard to forget.

He does not see Sansa smile. _Is that all? _She thinks, _Is it possible that he could feel… something?_

"And you are not my brother," she says back to him, and he opens his eyes in surprise.

And then closes them, when her lips find his.

She kisses Jon Snow that day.

…

Jon wakes, thrumming with Sansa's kisses.

He had returned to his own chambers eventually, reluctantly, though he had not wanted to.

_She had not wanted him to._

He finds himself smiling at nothing, feeling ridiculous in his happiness, his general giddiness. He even invites Ghost up onto the bed, annoyed as he is that Ghost keeps running off to wherever he goes. He was gone all day yesterday, returning to the room even later than Jon_, _rousing him from a very _pleasant_ dream.

Ghost nips at his shoulder, takes his shirt in his teeth and pulls. Jon hears a ripping sound, even Sansa's sturdy stitches no match for a mouthful of fangs.

"Ghost!" He says, annoyed, for Ghost has not behaved like this since he was a puppy, and Ghost leaps off the bed and moves to the door, scratching at it and then looking back at Jon.

"You want me to follow you?" Jon asks. Ghost looks at the door again, then back at Jon.

Jon sighs. "At least let me dress," he says.

Ghost leads him down the corridor, past Sansa's closed door, down through the courtyard, and pauses at the stable door, looking at Jon expectantly.

"Am I going to need a horse?" Jon asks in exasperation, and Ghost blinks at him. "Damn wolf," Jon grumbles, saddling a horse, "This better be worth it, Ghost. You're lucky I am not riding _you._"

Ghost leads him out through the gates, down the road, and then abruptly vanishes into the trees when he reaches the Wolfswoods.

He reappears when Jon enters the woods himself, bares his teeth at the horse in a snarl and nips halfheartedly at the mount's front legs.

Jon swears, and dismounts, for Ghost clearly does not want him bringing the horse into the woods and his mount is skittish enough around the direwolf as it is: he will have to tie the horse to a tree and pray that nobody comes along that is looking for a free horse.

"Ghost!" Jon calls, following his tracks deeper into the woods. The wolf appears between two trees, wags his tail, and disappears again, doubling back every now and then to make sure Jon's still on his trail.

He pauses under a huge tree, leaves piled around the base, and looks at Jon proudly.

"What? What have you hidden in these Godsforsaken woods that is so damn important?"

Ghost noses through the leaves at the base of the tree, and Jon starts back when he sees a patch of light fur.

_A direwolf pup?_

"Ghost," Jon says, moving in closer, "What have you done?"

The pup is tiny, eyes still closed, and for a moment, Jon fears that it is dead, but when Ghost noses it gently, the pup opens its mouth and mewls pitifully.

Jon looks around for the mother, fearing that she will leap out at him if he touches her babe, but he suspects that she has moved on with her other pups to a safer location, a cave perhaps, and left the runt of the litter for dead.

"Is this where you have been, Ghost?" Jon asks, "Have you become a daddy?"

He kneels in the leaves and reaches carefully for the pup, almost expecting Ghost to snap at him, but his wolf just pants and sits back, watching Jon carefully.

It is a girl pup, a tiny, delicate thing with grey fur almost as light as Ghost's. She opens her mouth and whimpers again, turning her face towards Jon, searching for food.

"Not now, wee one," Jon whispers, tucking the pup into his cloak, nestling her against his heart, "I'll take you home and find you some milk." She settles in the fur of his cloak, opens her mouth in a yawn, and squirms.

She is so dainty, so small, and clearly so _hungry_ that Jon fears that he will not be able to keep her alive, but he has done it once before and by all the Gods, he will do it again. If Ghost had not led him here, the pup would have died.

Jon holds his free hand out and Ghost approaches. "Good boy," Jon murmurs, scratching behind his ears as Ghost rubs against his leg, "Let's get her home and find her something to eat."

Jon cradles the baby wolf against his chest, riding one handed back to Winterfell. The courtyard is filled with people now, and Jon knows he looks strange, steering with one hand, hugging himself with the other, but he does not want them to know about the pup. Not yet.

He allows a stable boy to take care of his horse, something he almost never does, and hurries upstairs, Ghost on his heels.

Sansa's door is open, and she is at her window, looking out over her castle. He wonders if she saw him ride in.

He makes his footsteps audible so that he does not startle her, reaches his free hand out and brushes her hair over one shoulder, baring her neck.

"Good morning," she whispers as he bends to kiss it.

"I have something for you," he says, snaking his arm about her waist and pulling her back to him, gently, so she does not crush the pup. "An early name day present."

She turns to face him and smiles mischievously. "Honestly, I think we should wait a bit longer for _that."_

He chuckles. "Not that. Something else."

He reaches into his cloak, gently pulls the wolf pup out and holds it up to her, watching her face.

He worries for a moment that it was a bad idea, that she will not like it. He does not mean for the pup to _replace_ Lady, but he knows Sansa misses her desperately, he has seen the way she reaches for Ghost when she needs comfort.

"Oh, Jon," she breathes, her face lighting up, "He's beautiful!"

Sansa crooks her arm, and Jon places the wolf in it like a human babe. "She," he corrects gently as Sansa cradles her, "And I'm afraid she is rather hungry."

"I will send for milk right away," Sansa says, unable to tear her gaze from the direwolf sleeping in her arm. "Jon, how did you possibly…"

"Ghost has been rather busy," he says, leading Sansa to her chair and helping her sit, "He led me to this one. I think the mother took the others somewhere safer, but this one is the runt. Honestly, she is quite weak."

"I will not let her die," Sansa says ferociously, but the look on her face is gentle as she runs a finger over the wolf's nose and down her belly, and the pup stirs, wiggles, and mewls again, tiny tongue pink against her pale coat. "Are you sure you do not want her?"

"I have a direwolf," Jon says, sitting at Sansa's feet, and Ghost appears beside him as if called, looking up at Sansa, "You are a Stark. You need one."

"Thank you, Jon," She says, "And thank you, Ghost."

Eldric appears in the doorway and gapes at the furry bundle in his queen's arms. "Fetch some milk, warmed," she tells him, "quickly."

"Happy Name Day," Jon says, and Eldric reappears with a bowl of milk, deposits it on the table, and backs away again, wide eyed.

"Thank you, Eldric," Sansa says, "You may go."

She dips a finger into the milk and brings it to the wolf's open mouth, and the pup flicks out a tongue to catch the drop, squirming happily. She does it over and over, until the pup is sated and sleepy again, Jon watching her in silence.

"What will you name her?" He asks as the pup wriggles herself deeper into the cradle of Sansa's arm.

The wolf opens her eyes, blinks up at Sansa sleepily. Her eyes are a deep, vivid blue.

"Skye, I think," Sansa says softly.

Ghost has curled up on the hearth, and Sansa takes his daughter to him, nestling her in Ghost's warm fur. He lifts his head, licks Skye once, and closes his eyes again, Skye nestling herself deeper into his side.

Sansa stands, comes to Jon, searching, and he lets himself find her, taste her, hold her.

She pulls back.

"You give me too much," she says softly, through kiss swollen lips, "And I have given you nothing."

He has no words to tell her that she is wrong, that she has given him herself, her trust, her love, and that is something he can never repay.

But she has given him more than that.

She has given him a home.


End file.
